For The Casual Spike

Fortuitous Finds – Mana Dorks We All Forgot

Hey all, got a spicy new article for yah, looking into all the weird mana dorks you never knew you wanted until now! In this series I’ll go through a card “type”, like mana dorks or counterspells, and give you all the weird and wacky ones you’d never heard of that you might want to play. Or, maybe not, who knows!

Adarkar Unicorn

Wait, what? Add U or 1U for cumulative upkeep, on a white creature? Welcome to Ice Age, where mechanics ran wild across all of the color pie because who gives a crap! Realistically, if you’re playing a deck built to take advantage of cumulative upkeep, the unicorn isn’t the worst, there are even some playable CU cards like Mystic Remora in the colors, so I could maybe see it being worthwhile.

Apprentice Wizard

If you can believe it this was a rare back in the day, Urza have mercy. All in all though, it’s not a bad dork at all in a mono-blue deck, my first thought being Jalira, since she wants to be playing few creatures and big eldrazi, so even hitting this off a polymorph isn’t bad since it ramps you into the next one really well, and even into your eldrazi.

Benthic Explorers

Another weird blue one? Seems like blue dorks were popular in the days of “the color pie be damned.” This one is nifty enough, say you’re up against another blue player and you know they have Swan Song, you could maybe offer to untap their blue source so they can counter the other players’ game winner if they don’t use it to counter your Merrow Commerce. If it were cheaper I’d give it more merit, but in mono-blue it could be worth it for some political favor and some ramp.

Priest of Yawgmoth and Soldevi Adnate

So, to clarify what on earth that priest says, it’s essentially the same thing as the Adnate, but it’s only an artifact, not artifact or black creature. Now, these guys are nifty, letting you get some real amounts of mana in artifact decks. Imagine polymorphing into Sphinx of the Steel Wind, saccing it to Adnate, casting some more stuff and essentially storming off with a couple of janky mana dorks. Not great, but they have real applications I think in the right decks.

Witch Engine

Expensive mana dork, my favorite! but, this one does add four mana per tap, which is absurd, until you consider that your opponents get it after you. Or do they? Homeward Path makes this essentially 1, T: add BBBB to your mana pool, which is a fantastic rate, even for a 6-drop. I could see this making some splashes in untap shenanigans builds, where you tap and untap to its own trigger giving you a million black mana before an opponent gets it.

Orcish Lumberjack and Goblin Clearcutter

That’s some crazy mana acceleration, basically making every forest worth 4 mana in any combination of green or red, with at least one green mana. These guys are great in decks looking to break symmetry of sacrifice effects. *cough*Shattergang Brothers*cough*. Seriously though, I’d easily slam Orcish Lumberjack into any RGX deck looking to ramp hard, Rosheen Meanderer comes to mind, imagine paying 7 for an X-spell just by tapping one forest and two creatures.

Jungle Patrol

Yes, somehow, a green mana dork made its way onto the list of wacky dorks. This one is a little unconventional though, looking to be played in token decks just as much as ramp decks. Populating wood tokens and saccing them during blocks seems like a real winner, especially if you have some Lightning Bolts to take advantage of all the red mana. Not the most playable thing ever, but with Heartstone and Primal Vigor, it gets much better.

Riven Turnbull

… I didn’t ask for this.

Anyhow all, that’s been Fortuious Finds! If you enjoyed it, please let me know and I’ll keep it up, the next one will probably be counterspells unless someone gives me a better idea, so keep your eyes peeled non-blue players. Have a good one, thanks for reading!